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TikTok Ban Bill Is Patriot Act 2.0 Trojan Horse [video]

912 points by hitpointdrew 4y ago

Whatarethese 4y ago
Thankfully all of this bad press is starting to turn law makers minds. How it's turning out right now there is no shot TikTok will be banned. What we really need is privacy laws like almost every European country. But will currently lobbying laws I don't see that happening.
- abeyer 4y ago
  > What we really need is privacy laws like almost every European country Not gonna say we _don't_ need that... but it's not clear that there's any relevance to tiktok. Given the track record of Chinese companies and IP law they don't agree with, do you really expect them to honor privacy laws?
  - erklik 4y ago
    > Given the track record of Chinese companies and IP law they don't agree with, do you really expect them to honor privacy laws? Since TikTok is storing the data on US soil (I believe that's something they've started), or if not, make them. Presumably they have or will have US presence in terms of personnel, money and so on. If that is all true, which it should be, then it doesn't matter if you expect them to honor privacy laws. That's why laws have punishments. Apply fines, go arrest the people at their offices, confiscate their servers and so on. It's so weird to me, that the logic is : They might not follow the law, let's not make it.
    - brigandish 4y ago
      It's an example of the perfect solution fallacy[0], often heard when talking about laws or lifestyle changes (e.g. vegetarianism won't save all the animals, or going on a diet won't stop you dying et cetera). I'm sure we can all think of ones in tech too. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy#Perfect_solution_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy#Perfect_soluti...
  - CuriousCosmic 4y ago
    That's not the point. The reason the US judicial system isn't cracking down on TikTok is because there's no law preventing what they are doing. If the US passed a comprehensive data privacy & anti-surveillance law, US courts could sue TikTok into oblivion and even potentially levy criminal charges if they continued to refuse to comply. But they aren't doing that. Instead they are trying to ban TikTok so that the other social media companies (which are all US companies) can continue doing largely the same shit without getting in trouble. This bill is US economic & political protectionism. It's about banning software, services, and products from other countries without holding domestic companies to the same standard.
    - bioemerl 4y ago
      There is no such thing as a bill comprehensive and deep enough to ensure that a tool like tiktok not be abused by the Chinese government. Imagine for a moment you went back into the 1950s and told everyone "hey, let's have all of our television run by the Soviet Union! It's okay though, it's not actually the Soviet Union, it's just a company in the Soviet Union. And we passed a regulation, the regulation says they aren't allowed to use the TV show to do anything bad" They would think you're out of your mind, and the situation is similar today with TikTok. It doesn't matter how many regulations you put on it. We should pass such laws regardless, but we also need these bans as well.
      - chimeracoder 4y ago
        > There is no such thing as a bill comprehensive and deep enough to ensure that a tool like tiktok not be abused by the Chinese government. Sure there is. An comprehensive data privacy bill would render it impossible to legally collect the data that is necessary for the abuse in the first place. But that won't happen, because that would kneecap the US companies that these senators have stock in.
        bioemerl 4y ago
        No there isn't, unless you want to regulate down to the specific details of what it's promoted or suppressed in their algorithm, who gets banned, who gets compensated for their videos, and so on You'd have to regulate so harshly that you may as well just nationalize the company
  - fnordpiglet 4y ago
    I’ll be frank, Palantir and their customers and their suppliers scare the bejesus out of me. Chinese spy apps and balloons and what not, not so much. I can be convinced though. The trouble is I’ve not heard a coherent explanation what China is going to do with a bunch of videos of people doing stupid stuff that could remotely impact my life or national security. If I were China I’d just use my overwhelming dominance in all manufacturing to make Trojan horses in basically everything then back door the world. Seems like they would be capable and it would be a lot more effective than knowing what every tween in America is interested in. In my career I’ve seen what Palantir offers behind closed doors. I’ve seen what Google at least at one point was offering behind closed doors using their dominance in real time local data. Even if you trust Google, why on earth do you trust their data customers?
    - glass3 4y ago
      Have you seen bioemerl's comment about television? The one who controls the weights in TikTok's selection algorithm determines what people are going to believe.
      - epups 4y ago
        If this is true, are you also concerned about the algorithms controlled by American billionaires? I think that's a national security risk as well.
      - theaussiestew 4y ago
        Are you seriously suggesting that the Chinese government is actively adjusting the weighting of the TikTok algorithms to sway mass opinion on the TikTok app? It’s already a stretch saying that the Chinese government controls ByteDance because they clearly don’t.
      - fnordpiglet 4y ago
        I don’t believe that social media has nearly as much influence on most people as people seem to believe. I think it absolutely impacts some people, but most people have much stronger social influence from their local social sphere - family, friends, school. But still some people are strongly influenced and that’s not good. But to what end? I think if it started pumping out Chinese communist party propaganda folks would notice. So, what’s left? I’ve heard “dumbing people down” by pointing to the fact the Chinese version of TikTok shows more educational and improving content. This isn’t because TikTok thinks Chinese people prefer educational content or that they get more revenue, it’s because the Chinese government requires them to show educational content. They show everyone else whatever garbage addicts them because, just like every other social media company, showing addictive garbage creates addicted customers and therefore dollars. If our government, say, instead of banning tiktok, did whah the Chinese government is doing - required social media to present more wholesome content to its users, guess what - tiktok would show more wholesome content to its users. As would Facebook, instagram, YouTube, and hacker news.
  - cowl 4y ago
    There is relevance. You see now in Europe State Institutions and Coorporates are banning use of Tiktok on Official phones precisly because they can not guarantee the Respect of the privacy laws. Offcourse they are not banning private use of it but it beeing a social network, The Network effects will soon become apararent and tiktok will be used only for leisure but people will soon not bother havong another Social network that they cant use for a great part of the day. (Note that this attitute is not particular to China). On Corporate world we could not use a majority of US tech provided services also because by Euopean law we could not give guarantees that the US government would not access those data)
- bioemerl 4y ago
  This better just result in a revision of the bill to remove some of the things people are complaining about and not shut the bill down entirely. TikTok very badly needs to be banned.
- alphanullmeric 4y ago
  Laws like cash transaction tracking and other egregious violations of financial privacy under the guise of transparency? No thanks, keep that in the EU. Just further proof that it really is the people that voted for the patriot act, because so many supposed privacy supporters are willing to defend state surveillance where it benefits them.
puppymaster 4y ago
Last thread we have folks asking for full spectrum bill to target social media just to make it fair. Nah. I just want pinpoint TikTok ban with no vague and broad language for others. This bill is anything but that.
- bioemerl 4y ago
  One of the reasons the bill is structured as it has been is that the court shut down the last ban and was rumored to be willing to shut down a future specific ban. Keeping it in general was actually a way to get it past the courts.
gorwell 4y ago
This is a bipartisan bill and supported by the White House. It's Patriot Act Version 2. Everything they wanted in version 1 and couldn't get, they are putting in here. It does not contain the word TikTok. It applies to "desktop applications", "mobile applications", "gaming applications", "payment applications", "web-based applications" and everything connected to the Internet that serves >1M users within a year time period. Fines up to $1M and 20 years in prison. It also uses civil forfeiture and makes it illegal to properly run a VPN. This has bipartisan support.
- aaomidi 4y ago
  I’ve said this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35123415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35123415
  - deleted 4y ago
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- est 4y ago
  > Internet that serves >1M users Not only that, if you selling hardware to >1M customers, then you are subject to this ban. Hint: Your hardware might be manufactured in China, or a Chinese-affiliated company in your supply chain, then you are at risk.
  - yed 4y ago
    No, it only applies to entities where China has a controlling interest. If you buy Chinese hardware that doesn’t make your company Chinese.
    - syntheticcdo 4y ago
      No, at 3:50 in TFA the bill defines holding as: i. an equity interest, ii. a stock, iii. a security, iv. a share, v. a partnership interest, vi. an interest in an LLC, vii. a membership interest, or vii. ANY participation, right, or other equivilent, however designated and of ANY character (emphasis mine). That's a lot more broad than "Chinese controlling interest". Edit: and "controlling interest" as defined in the bill means "a holding with the power, whether direct or indirect and whether exercised or not exercised, to determine, direct, or decide important matters affecting an entity." which is much more broad than the commonly understood 51% equity stake.
pelagicAustral 4y ago
At least the bill is not about saving Silicon Valley Bank.
- hindsightbias 4y ago
  Actually, it’s another bailout for uncompetitive SV social media platforms.
dang 4y ago
Related: Republican Rand Paul blocks the fast-tracking of TikTok ban - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35366209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35366209 - March 2023 (48 comments) Bill 686: Use TikTok over VPN and go to prison for 20 years and/or 1M fine [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35360033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35360033 - March 2023 (3 comments) TikTok bills could dangerously expand national security state - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35359577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35359577 - March 2023 (3 comments) Senate Bill to Ban TikTok - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35347925 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35347925 - March 2023 (613 comments) The TikTok ban is a betrayal of the open internet - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35336748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35336748 - March 2023 (415 comments) The next Patriot Act, but so much worse: Bill S686 the RESTRICT Act (TikTok ban) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35336366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35336366 - March 2023 (10 comments) Patriot Act on steroids: anti-TikTok Trojan horse for censorship, surveillance - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35334851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35334851 - March 2023 (164 comments)
eganist 4y ago
> (2) Inapplicability of FOIA.— > Any information submitted to the Federal Government by a party to a covered transaction in accordance with this Act, as well as any information the Federal Government may create relating to the review of the covered transaction, is exempt from disclosure under section 552 of title 5, United States Code (commonly referred to as the "Freedom of Information Act"). How is this even remotely acceptable? I'm generally in favor of a TikTok ban, but this bill is so ridiculously onerous that they handed the PR advantage to TikTok and made a necessary national security measure almost entirely unsalable.
- kenjackson 4y ago
  Why are you in favor of a TikTok ban?
  - eganist 4y ago
    I go into more detail on my thoughts here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35363138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35363138 The context in the thread is modestly useful.
- gruez 4y ago
  >How is this even remotely acceptable? Why not? It's not reasonable to expect everything to be public. There are classified documents, for instance. I skimmed the bill and "covered transaction" refers to financial (?) transactions with banned entities. Is that being exempt from FOIA laws really surprising? I wouldn't CTRs[1] to be requestable under FOIA, for instance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_transaction_report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_transaction_report
  - eganist 4y ago
    The language exempts everything pertaining to this act. If there's intel informing a ban, that's one thing. But everything, even unclassified information? That's too much.
    - 4y ago
worewood 4y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago
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- slackfan 4y ago
  No.
Bud 4y ago
[dead]
monksy 4y ago
From Mr Clinton (Sometimes featuring Louis Rossmann): Summarization of the bill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudlYSLFls8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudlYSLFls8 Full reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlQAxhM3vo8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlQAxhM3vo8
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  Mr Clinton is apparently Rossmann's cat, for others that don't get the joke.
  - monksy 4y ago
    Mr Clinton is the star of the show.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
enragedcacti 4y ago
Does anyone have a breakdown from a lawyer about the RESTRICT act? I have no doubt that the bill is awful but all of the interpretation I have seen has been from people without legal backgrounds and with (to me, also someone without a legal background) very shaky readings e.g. just using a VPN AT ALL will get you 20 years in prison.
- wilsonnb3 4y ago
  I recommend reading it yourself, it is not a very long bill. It is crystal clear about the penalties for bypassing any “mitigation measures” that the executive branch creates using the bill/law. So no, just using a VPN will not be illegal. Using a VPN (or anything else) to access software or services provided by a “foreign adversary” that are deemed illegal to use by the executive branch will be punishable criminally by a fine of up to $1,000,000 and 20 years in jail and civilly by a fine of not more than $250,000. VPN providers may also find themselves in hot water if an adventurous prosecutor wants to make a case that the VPN provider is “aiding and abetting” simply by providing a service that can be used to circumvent the law. I would also appreciate a lawyer weighing in on that particular part as I am sure there is a lot of legal precedent involved in determining what counts as “aiding and abetting” in this context.
  - lazystar 4y ago
    > Using a VPN (or anything else) to access software or services provided by a “foreign adversary” maybe im missing something ...how is that not already illegal? as an example, if someone in ukraine used a vpn to access the kremlins internal networks, id assume they were a spy for russia. the terminology is vague, but at first glance stuff like the pirate bay doesnt appear to match.
    - vkou 4y ago
      > maybe im missing something ...how is that not already illegal? Why on Earth should visiting, say, a Russian news site, or logging into VKontakte from the United States, using a VPN be illegal?
duringmath 4y ago
That's what you get when keep asking for more laws and regulations, this country has too much government and too many bad laws on the books and chances are new legislation will only make things even worse. So stop voting in attorney generals and other prosecutor types to congress and calling for every transaction and activity to be regulated just because you dislike a certain company or the people running it, special interests will always hijack your cause and warp it into this kind of monstrosity.
- orthecreedence 4y ago
  And stop expecting government to fix problems that are inherently cultural. It cannot do so, and in the process only grows in aimless power.
fsociety999 4y ago
Of course this isn’t and wasn’t ever about TikTok. The same way the original Patriot Act was never really about catching terrorists. When a bill has broad bipartisan support you can usually be sure it is not in the interests of the people. I am honestly a little surprised they named it the RESTRICT Act as opposed to something like “The Internet Freedom Act” which is more in line with how they usually operate. The bill is overly broad to the point where they can basically ban any app or service for any reason, and they don’t have to tell anyone why they did it. It also includes a section I haven’t seen a lot of people talking about: > (K) e-commerce technology and services, including any electronic techniques for accomplishing business transactions, online retail, internet-enabled logistics, internet-enabled payment technology, and online marketplaces. “internet-enabled payment technology” to me sure sounds a lot like Bitcoin and/or other cryptocurrencies. So all they have to do is say that some Russian state actor used Bitcoin to transact and boom Bitcoin is illegal. You try to use it, 20 years in federal prison and/or up to $1M fine. This is perhaps the most tyrannical/orwellian bill I have ever read. If this passes, Americans need to take to the streets and burn it all to the ground.
brucethemoose2 4y ago
This bill went from being bipartisan to wildly radioactive overnight. I am seeing sites from the entire US political spectrum, from far right to far left and moderates in between, techy and non techy, writing the same negative things about it. Some senators (like Marco Rubio per his latest Tweets) are already distancing themselves from the bill. I am still worried about another attempt... but I am not losing any sleep over RESTRICT. It is dead as a doornail.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - losteric 4y ago
    What are your critiques of the OP article? This bill seems indisputably bad. One could just as easily say vague American "powers that be" were stopped rushing the law through congressional lobbying propaganda.
  - warent 4y ago
    Just read the bill for yourself if you want to cut through the propaganda, that's what I did. The bill is awful. It gives the Secretary broad sweeping authority to access everything about everyone who they think is "suspicious", without any kind of safeguards or criteria for what makes someone suspicious. They then have the authority to prosecute that person if they determine them to be bringing harm to the US, without any clarification of what that even means. The law has specific language for defining what a social media company is (over 1,000,000 users), but the law still seems to apply beyond just companies, extending to everyone including individuals.
    - Dalewyn 4y ago
      Having read through the bill[1], yeah: I'm in support of the bill. The bill specifically covers companies and businesses ("entities") held by "foreign adversaries" with more than 1 million "active users" or "units sold" in a given 365 day period, so the scope is narrow; the bill doesn't permit wanton authority over businesses period. Neither is the "VPNs will be blocked!" narrative anything more than a narrative, propaganda. The cited passage, section 11 subsection 2 paragraph F is boilerplate legalese prohibiting violation ("evasion") of the bill and any subsequent actions that come from it. This together with the Chinese propaganda machine seemingly going full bore convinces me even harder in seeing this bill passed into law. [1]: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686...
deleted 4y ago
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di456 4y ago
So Facebook/meta gets a monopoly on manipulating public opinion and subversion? They need to be regulated and reigned in just as hard as TikTok.
- orthecreedence 4y ago
  But but communists...
- jacquesm 4y ago
  That I can get behind, but for now it looks like 'The West' doesn't mind sharing data with each other as long as it is the users doing it themselves. The only country that takes a more aggressive stance on this is Germany and even in Germany Facebook works just fine. But a German company that deals with sensitive data should not send that data overseas without ensuring that this does not get them in trouble with the German privacy authority.
- pyinstallwoes 4y ago
  And how would you do that?
  - di456 4y ago
    The right solution becomes more clear when the right problem is understood. Banning TikTok just means the same problems continue to exist domestically. Meta, InQTel/CIA, et.al just consolidate their power and eliminate the competition. Pandora's box is open and social media, AI, adtech ain't going back into the box. Regulate it evenly across the board.
deleted 4y ago
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dymax78 4y ago
> Fines up to $1M and 20 years in prison. It also uses civil forfeiture and makes it illegal to properly run a VPN. I genuinely don't understand where this interpretation is coming from; I'm not challenging the interpretation, rather asking for an explanation. They intend on cratering SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS (+ insert any other solution where VPNs are ubiquitous with respect to access) for the purposes of prohibiting access to TikTok and ilk that belong to "foreign adversaries" (China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela)? - Will B2B VPNs be allowed, and B2C / commercial VPNs be prohibited? - How would they accomplish this? Ask ISPs to blacklist VPNs? - How would any of this be enforceable? (perhaps I answered my own question with the preceding question) edit: I replied to the general post rather than the individual whom I addressing my inquiry.
anonymouse008 4y ago
What is the US's prevailing philosophy for domestic protection? Is it absolutely 0 risk? Is it 0 risk for certain things and not others? My mind struggles to understand a cohesive leadership strategy for the next 100 to 500 years. The current state of affairs could easily devolve into anarchy within 100 years - I just don't understand what they are giving us to work towards together? Bills like these say very squarely, 'we don't trust you, the citizen, to be able to defend yourselves. Nor do we believe that your efforts at incorporating new products and cooperating together to defend yourselves will be sufficient.' So... you're saying we are absolutely hopeless in the next 100 years? I seriously don't get that as a leadership strategy. The American spirit is one that overcomes any adversity, not through avoidance, but through head-on action powered by an unshakable resolve. This bill, as well as the original Patriot Act and almost every one since, discards the everyday citizen as the first and primary hope for the future. It is an erosion of the 'American Spirit' from our direct keepers of the flame; it's unbelievably sad. I say all of this 'couched' knowing full well evil people exist and keep a whole community behind for almost 50 years through racism - so it's not a 'let everyone be mean to each other' == freedom either.
- thebradbain 4y ago
  If the United States lasts in its current form for another 100 years, I will be surprised. 100 years ago, you could argue this country was fundamentally different than it is now — aside from rights (pretty much all of civil rights) and liabilities we now take for granted (the concept of federal income tax was just 10 years old, and not even fully implemented for another couple of decades), we were still two states shy of the 50 we have now. The country will absolutely change in the next 100. No telling which way, though.
- eldenwrong 4y ago
  Anarchy would be great and the chances of that are extremely small. I think you mean a total surveillance fascist dictatorship
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    Anarchy would be great? Anarchy would be Somalia - warlords and armed gangs. I don't want to live there.
not-chatgpt 4y ago
In order to beat China, we need to become something worse than China?
- jjcon 4y ago
  Something worse? China and others bans almost every western social media company. Is the US not allowed to retaliate on those grounds alone? This bill only authorizes the banning of tech companies operated out of western enemy states: China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela (with a caveat). The international economy is already not free (never has been), so I fail to see how this changes much other than shifting and clarifying some governmental powers. The US has banned Huawei telecommunications equipment, is this all that different other than the fact that it is much more public facing? What makes the Chinese government problematic is not protectionism or even the great firewall, it is the genocide, the policing of criticism from all sources, the authoritarian single party rule.
  - not-chatgpt 4y ago
    I don't know, but China is not posing fines up to $1M and threatening 20 years in prison + civil forfeiture to just run a VPN. Also, are you saying genocides is not one of US's main export?
    - jjcon 4y ago
      > I don't know, but China is not posing fines up to $1M and threatening 20 years in prison + civil forfeiture to just run a VPN. Good thing that isn't what is happening here
  - FooBarWidget 4y ago
    You have the right to do all that, but you can't do all that and at the same time claim to be a morally superior, free and open society. Pick one: are your much-espoused values more important, or is revenge more important?
    - 4y ago
slackfan 4y ago
I don't understand why HN allows and abetts the spread of these ludicrous, and frankly dangerous, conspiracy theories.
- Shaggy2000 4y ago
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- dang 4y ago
  It seems like a legit debate—no? If one side is right and the other is wrong, the best thing to do is to post clear information explaining how and why. Name-calling doesn't help—it just locks things in place without giving anyone a reason to shift. Also it's against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
DethNinja 4y ago
Isn’t this bill a bit too broad? They might as well just write “We are the executive branch, we can do anything we want, rule of law does not apply to us”. It is kinda sad to see such laws from western countries because it discards entire progress humanity have made during the past thousands of years in terms of law and justice. This is some type of regression to cave-men era, one can’t help but wonder how such fall from grace have happened.
- Shaggy2000 4y ago
  [dead]
- Shank 4y ago
  > They might as well just write “We are the executive branch, we can do anything we want, rule of law does not apply to us”. The best part is that it's the legislative branch handing over this much control to the executive branch. It cedes so much authority from the legislative branch that the executive branch can basically run the show without intervention. Anything that can be remotely construed as bypassing a mitigation measure (i.e., telling someone how to download TikTok, or, hypothetically, any future social network or platform or service) could be turned into a violation without any further oversight.
- akomtu 4y ago
  It's even more interesting that similar sudden aggression from the state entities can be seen in other nations. The entire elaborate system of american laws, the bill of rights, congress and so on exists for one purpose: to keep the state demon in its cage. For some reason it's gotten very aggressive recently.
  - imrane 4y ago
    [flagged]
theGnuMe 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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NoZebra120vClip 4y ago
No problem, says China, if they can't get at us via software and the Internet, they'll just start installing Trojans and RATs on every electronic device they ever send us (source: my current laptop was custom manufactured and shipped direct from Shenzhen).
- jacquesm 4y ago
  I bought an inverter for a set of solar panels recently and the only way to read it out / configure it is to allow it bi-directional access to and from a bunch of servers in China. I declined, and stuck a bunch of current transforms on the output lines so that gives me proper logging but there is no way to reach the configuration and setup other than what the display and infuriatingly broken single button interface provides. This is one of the major manufacturers ("Growatt") and the market is such right now that you take what you can. There is absolutely no way I'm going to give unfettered access to a bunch of power infrastructure in my house to a Chinese server without even so much as a protocol description or a way to selectively disable certain functionality (such as all remote control and updates).
  - whitehexagon 4y ago
    Just tripped over the same thing. Axpert MAX inverter requires .cn cloud connected App. Prev gen had BLE local control. I had a look at trying to reverse engineer the protocol, but not much progress since I refuse to run the App. I can send a UDP message to tell it use my TCP server, but then it seems to require a magic knock at the door.
good_accelerate 4y ago
[flagged]
- guerrilla 4y ago
  It's in everyone's interest for this bill to pass! There's no need for propaganda when we can just read it!
perihelions 4y ago
If this passes, I think USGov will take down SciHub right away, because their position is that it's affiliated with GRU. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-department-investigates-sci-hub-founder-on-suspicion-of-working-for-russian-intelligence/2019/12/19/9dbcb6e6-2277-11ea-a153-dce4b94e4249_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-dep... ("Justice Department investigates Sci-Hub founder on suspicion of working for Russian intelligence", 2019)
- jacquesm 4y ago
  That's complete nonsense though.
  - sampa 4y ago
    who cares
jacquesm 4y ago
So, how would the HN crowd have addressed the perceived issue if they were in power? Assuming that: (1) there is some evidence that TikTok is used to gather information on individuals (2) that this information makes its way to the Chinese state operatives (3) that this is perceived to be a security risk I find it easy to criticize this bill but I also find it hard to come up with a practical improvement over what it does.
- rvz 4y ago
  > So, how would the HN crowd have addressed the perceived issue if they were in power? Here's an idea: For any large social network (at least 250M+ monthly active users) or big tech company to continue operations in the US and if found to have violated the privacy of its users: Fine them up to $50M to $500M. Repeated offences should rack up to a $1B fine and failing to comply or to continue such offences should have fines increased into the multi-billions of dollars. Much better than this bill and even better than an outright ban. Easy.
htrp 4y ago
The Government can arbitrarily ban any service because the law covers desktop apps, mobile apps, gaming apps, payment apps, and web apps. I'm not sure what apps are left outside of the scope of this. ------------------------------------------------------ From the bill(full context) 6) software designed or used primarily for connecting with and communicating via the internet that is in use by greater than 1,000,000 persons in the United States at any point during the year period preceding the date on which the covered transaction is referred to the Secretary for review or the Secretary initiates review of the covered transaction, including— (A) desktop applications; (B) mobile applications; (C) gaming applications; (D) payment applications; or (E) web-based applications; or (7) information and communications technology products and services integral to— (A) artificial intelligence and machine learning; (B) quantum key distribution; (C) quantum communications; (D) quantum computing; (E) post-quantum cryptography; (F) autonomous systems; (G) advanced robotics; (H) biotechnology; (I) synthetic biology; (J) computational biology; and (K) e-commerce technology and services, including any electronic techniques for accomplishing business transactions, online retail, internet-enabled logistics, internet-enabled payment technology, and online marketplaces.
- onion2k 4y ago
  I think this means command line interfaces are going to make a comeback.
  - shbooms 4y ago
    I feel like even that would fall under the umbrella of a desktop app in the context of this asine bill. they didn't say desktop apps with a GUI, just any "app" running on a desktop which I'm sure they would argue includes bash or whatever else you're running as your CLI.
    - KevinGlass 4y ago
      Maybe a service that you interact with over HAM radio via NLP would fall outside of it.
    - 4y ago
lynx23 4y ago
That is true genious. "Lets build a social network which will eventually force our adversary to restrict freedoms of their citizens, eventually moving closer to us..." It is counterintuitive that the US government is introducing legislation that will seemingly appease the Chinese government, given that the US is a democratic society that values individual freedoms. This raises important questions about why the government is falling for China's manipulative tactics. By restricting freedom and ignoring democratic principles, it appears the US government is playing into China's hands, providing justification for their own repressive actions. The USA needs to be vigilant in guarding its democratic values and principles, and committed to promoting these ideals around the world, instead of compromising them.
- pyinstallwoes 4y ago
  Nailed it.
- tremarley 4y ago
  Well said.
- hammersdoom 4y ago
  [dead]
- nathan_compton 4y ago
  One might argue that international conflict has always served primarily as a pretext to impose domestic social controls, at least since the cold war started. What I'm saying is that the ruling classes in China and the US arguably have more in common with each other than they do with their common citizens and the appearance of conflict is useful for both sets of elites.
Dig1t 4y ago
Seems that western democracies have been trending towards authoritarianism more and more as technology has improved over the last few decades. This is getting really scary.
matheusmoreira 4y ago
Million dollar fines and 20 years of imprisonment for daring to access information the government does not want you to see. Amazing.
nurgasemetey 4y ago
So if I will create SSH tunnel using AWS EC2 to view tiktok, can AWS ban me?
elihu 4y ago
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is opposed to the TikTok ban. About 5 days ago, she posted a video on TikTok explaining her thinking here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aocinthehouse/video/7214318917135830318 https://www.tiktok.com/@aocinthehouse/video/7214318917135830... The summary is: this would be a pretty unprecedented move to effectively ban a social media company. In this case, TikTok isn't even doing anything illegal as far as we know, because the United States has basically no data privacy laws that would be relevant here in the first place. The solution to that problem isn't to ban TikTok, it's to create a regulatory framework where companies are obligated to follow certain rules. Also, with these sorts of issues Congress usually receives a classified briefing where they're told the nature of the allegations against a specific party. Congress, however, has not been briefed on what TikTok is doing, which is odd. And besides, those allegations should probably be shared publicly in this case because the effects of any potential legislation are so significant. As she says, "this doesn't feel right." It seems like Congress isn't following its normal procedures. She doesn't talk about the language of any particular bill or how it doesn't mention TikTok at all; I'm not sure if the version referred to by the original video was available to AOC when she made her video.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  > In this case, TikTok isn't even doing anything illegal as far as we know, because the United States has basically no data privacy laws that would be relevant here in the first place. The solution to that problem isn't to ban TikTok, it's to create a regulatory framework where companies are obligated to follow certain rules. That's the thing: TikTok is basically state-sponsored, Apple/Google approved spyware. I don't have a link handy, but I remember reading that security researchers found the tiktok android binary had the capability to receive code remotely and execute it, meaning that the CCP can make millions of Android phones do whatever they want, especially if the code uploaded includes exploits. But how do you legislate against that sort of thing? Especially when Congress demonstrates how tech illiterate it is? It's also clearly being used to attack our society and infrastructure via children with poor judgement and little to fear from our criminal justice system. The platform does not not moderate in the slightest any of the various "tiktok challenges", most of which are dangerous to both the participant and general public, as well as causing lots of expensive damage. They could block or de-emphasize any number of the tags used in these "challenges", but instead they seem to boost them. So we have kids sticking forks into electrical sockets in their classrooms and destroying the bathrooms, breaking into Kias and joyriding them at insanely dangerous speeds, purposefully causing people to fall in the most dangerous way possible (kicking their feet out from under them so the brain's natural protective instincts can't protect the head from trauma)...the list just goes on and on. Did anyone notice that damn near every single one of these tiktok challenges seems almost perfectly tailored to cause a lot of damage or injury, and utilizes a population which essentially has nothing to fear from criminal repercussions thanks to our criminal justice system sealing their records once they come of age?
anarchogeek 4y ago
This ban and the bills seem bad, but they're not as bad as these folks make out on the video: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/government-hasnt-justified-tiktok-ban https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/government-hasnt-justi...
neom 4y ago
I'd recommend reading this report by the Australian government, it's very interesting: https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=a7e2a076-1112-4414-ba0f-f129e0cd39fe&subId=735418 https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=a7e2a076-1112-4... "Our research confirms beyond any plausible doubt that TikTok is owned by ByteDance, ByteDance is a PRC company, and ByteDance is subject to all the influence, guidance and de facto control to which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP, the Party) now subjects all PRC technology companies. We show how the CCP and PRC state agencies (together, the Party-state) have extended their ties into ByteDance to the point that the company can no longer be accurately described as a private enterprise. These findings draw on previously unexamined sources and contradict many of TikTok’s public statements. The most significant findings, in our view, relate to how TikTok’s capabilities may be integrated with what China’s leader Xi Jinping describes as the Party’s “external discourse mechanisms”."
IAmGraydon 4y ago
Who, specifically, is involved in writing the language of this bill? Name them.
- 650REDHAIR 4y ago
  Mr. Warner (for himself, Mr. Thune, Ms. Baldwin, Mrs. Fischer, Mr. Manchin, Mr. Moran, Mr. Bennet, Mr. Sullivan, Mrs. Gillibrand, Ms. Collins, Mr. Heinrich, Mr. Romney, and Mrs. Capito) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
  - IAmGraydon 4y ago
    Yes, but who is actually creating the text? Who is sitting there and literally choosing the words in the bill? Mark Warner does not have the technical knowledge to write this, and I doubt he has the time either. I want to know who’s thoughts are becoming law in this country.
    - 650REDHAIR 4y ago
      I’ll dig into it when I get home this evening, but he’s acting as a corporate mouthpiece for sure.
classified 4y ago
It's no surprise the government wouldn't constrain wild-west capitalism but instead expand wild-west surveillance and totalitarianism. Secretly they admire the Chinese role model and want to emulate it. They just want to avoid too much backlash in public opinion. After all, the U.S. are still a democracy, on paper.
baq 4y ago
TikTok is why every free liberal democracy must have a Special Circumstances department which is low key allowed to break all the laws to protect it… Banks was absolutely right.
squarefoot 4y ago
I'm not a US citizen, but we have our share of crazy civil liberties restricting bills as well, and when they can't manage to pass them the 1st time, they will try and try again until they succeed. We need to win every time, they need to win only one time. Generally speaking, one should be extremely suspicious of any bill that is being introduced during a crisis period (war, economics, etc) if it's not related to the crisis and it's bipartisan. Especially if it's bipartisan.
dpe82 4y ago
If this is as bad as some say, why isn't the EFF making a huge deal of it so far?
qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
If all you have to solve problems is a hammer ("control population") instead of a toolbelt ("control or alter situations") this is all you will produce as a politician. The political duopoly market failure, which has prevented such "alternatives" from appearing has entered its final, terminal spiral, copying the external alternative that is chinas party, which seems to survives all kinds of turmoil.
nirui 4y ago
I'm never an user of ByteDance/TikTok, but somehow this makes me sad for TikTok. If you don't know, many Chinese companies sees the "overseas market" (mainly US and EU) as a backup plan. If something went wrong in China (say the Jack Ma situation during the past few years, and many other unsound ones), the leadership of those companies can just pop to another country and then party cannot reach for them, which is what ByteDance CEO did. Now, without this market option, these companies can only dig in in China now, probably their eventually their own graves too, but business is better than no business, and overall China treat them more fairly this time. Even Jack Ma has returned to China just few days ago, he probably smelled something. You might think, "wow, good plan, hurts China very well". Well... you hasn't seen what it would be like when a Chinese company gone full-loyal towards the party. The party is probably writing love letters to who proposed the act. A win-win for the party and the US, I'd totally say.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > The party is probably writing love letters to who proposed the act. This is what they dont understand, if you take the club to legitimate foreign competition, the only ones left standing will ne the ones willing to play dirty.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > The party is probably writing love letters to who proposed the act. This is what they dont understand, if you take the club to legitimate foreign competition, the only ones left standing will ne the ones willing to play dirty. And they will know they mist be loyal to their evil government, because you will have demonstrated that you will not treat them poorly
EchoReflection 4y ago
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/3/28/bid-to-ban-tiktok-raises-hypocrisy-charge-amid-global-spying https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/3/28/bid-to-ban-tikto... https://www.npr.org/2022/11/16/1137076864/fbi-says-china-could-use-tiktok-to-spy-on-americans-including-government-workers https://www.npr.org/2022/11/16/1137076864/fbi-says-china-cou... https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelposner/2023/03/27/tiktoks-links-to-china-demands-a-serious-us-response/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelposner/2023/03/27/tiktok... https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/politics/spy-balloon-technology/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/politics/spy-balloon-technolo... https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-spy-balloon-us-pentagon-why-would-china-send-one-2023-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-spy-balloon-us-penta... China is not an ally of the United States. The Chinese government wants what is good for China. Shouldn't be a contentious or confusing idea.
phendrenad2 4y ago
Who wrote this bill? We should applaud them for making it so ridiculous that it loses support immediately.
quitit 4y ago
While chilling that this is so broad and thus likely has many "unintended" loopholes that could be used inappropriately. The wording of the bill is limited to foreign adversaries (then lists them) - however the press I'm reading mentions talk about how this could be used to criminalise VPN and present other possible harms collectively being titled as "patriot 2.0". Can someone fill in the connection between how it goes from a bill that requires a foreign adversary to suddenly criminalising VPN for everybody? I'm not in favour of bills that include broad language, but I'm also cognisant that foreign adversaries would be extremely interested in spinning this bill to be worse than it is. (i.e. if you could kindly point me to the section/s that look concerning https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686... so I can better educate myself)
- Sakos 4y ago
  I've been approaching this from the same perspective and I'm wondering the same thing. It feels like there's a lot of spinning going on and I'm not sure people are aware of it. This seems to be a common sticking point: > to address any risk arising from any covered transaction by any person where a covered transaction is > (A) IN GENERAL.—The term “covered transaction” means a transaction in which an entity described in subparagraph (B) has any interest (including through an interest in a contract for the provision of the technology or service), or any class of such transactions. > (B) COVERED ENTITIES.—The entities described in this subparagraph are: > (i) a foreign adversary; > (ii) an entity subject to the jurisdiction of, or organized under the laws of, a foreign adversary; and > (iii) an entity owned, directed, or controlled by a person described in subparagraph (A) or (B). I don't understand how you go from here to "banning VPNs for everybody". I've looked through the act and I don't see anything particularly egregious that supports the "THIS IS THE PATRIOT ACT 2.0!!!" take. I want to see an analysis by law experts, not some techbros on HN or some random channel on YT. If I look at that channel, the description is "Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar is a fearless anti-establishment Youtube show and podcast." Uh ... okay. And I look at the rest of the videos they've made and it's just, yeah, this is a propaganda channel. Why are people taking this channel and the title of their video at face value? It feels like people are being played hard and we all need to take a step back from the sensationalism.
ibic 4y ago
The TikTok Ban can be said to be controversal, but to me, it's definitely not to be compared to something akin to a trojan horse.
AlexandrB 4y ago
I don't get what people were expecting. It's fairly obvious that a "TikTok ban" is a restriction on your rights as citizens to run whatever software you god damn please. Why would the law look like anything other than this? The US government has no power to restrict China from doing anything. All they can do is stop US citizens from doing certain things - and preventing US citizens from using TikTok requires some pretty broad powers over your digital life.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
reset-password 4y ago
To stop China we must become China
eimrine 4y ago
Could the United States to stop producing smartphones with spyware-as-OS? In the word where nobody can spy how is it possible for ByteDance to get their app banned?
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
They could have used the opportunity to make all apps more privacy friendly. Like, make all social media apps function without access to geolocation, phone address book etc People having access to secrets should only use standard-issue devices on the premises anyway.
rqtwteye 4y ago
After doing some reading seems to me that this bill will cause a lot of selective enforcement. It’s very broad and if enforced strictly it would probably shut down a lot of the tech industry. So it will probably be used to shut down inconvenient people and organizations while others won’t get touched.
bithead 4y ago
This is the single worst way to address the problem. Just start a new US-based replacement for tiktok. Like tittok or something like that.
baby 4y ago
This is so dumb, and I see a lot of Americans actually repeating the propaganda and truly believing that TikTok is a national security threat (even here on HN). Propaganda is truly an effective weapon.
- 1970-01-01 4y ago
  There is good evidence suggesting it causes mental health issues, especially in adolescents. Keeping it under close study is a good idea, however calling it 'a national threat' is just knee-jerk grunting from 'the man'.
  - baby 4y ago
    Sure so does alcohol, cigarets, gambling, video games, sugar, etc.
huuhee3 4y ago
TikTok and most of other social media is cancer entirely comparable to the tobacco industry. I wouldn't miss any of it.
atlgator 4y ago
The foreign entities list has all the usual suspects in the current "axis of evil." However, the Act allows the list to change without further legislation at the discretion of the Secretary. This is authoritarianism under the guise of safety.
unethical_ban 4y ago
I know we've got this great discussion going, but does anyone actually watch these kinds of "news" sites? It looks like a TYT knockoff and some pretty poor presentation. Who is Breaking Point, and are they reputable? The use of some filler language and "corporate media corporate media" and adverbs used like sugar in McD's sweet tea is setting off my BS alarms.
ngcc_hk 4y ago
What one country stop the other can react. Would it be an option as WhatsApp and YouTube not in china, one can block …
AtNightWeCode 4y ago
People drive around in more or less Chinese built cars. Or cars using Chinese tech. A bigger threat perhaps. Apply the pressure on Google and Apple instead to provide a safe platform even if the apps are rouge.
theprospector 4y ago
The "Terminate TikTok on Campus Act of 2023" (H.R. 231) is a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. If enacted, it would prohibit federal funds from being provided to institutions of higher education unless they ban the use of TikTok on electronic devices owned or issued by the institution. Here's a summary of the main provisions of the bill: Short Title: The bill is referred to as the "Terminate TikTok on Campus Act of 2023." Prohibition on Federal Funds: The bill would prohibit federal funding for institutions of higher education that do not develop and implement standards and guidelines banning TikTok on their electronic devices and requiring the removal of TikTok from such devices. Research Exception: The bill provides an exception for research related to national security, law enforcement, telecommunications, or cybersecurity that is conducted by, supervised by, or authorized by faculty of an institution of higher education. Definitions: The bill defines "institution of higher education" according to the Higher Education Act of 1965, "electronic device" as a device capable of accessing the internet, and "TikTok" as the social networking service TikTok or any successor application or service developed or provided by ByteDance Limited or an entity owned by ByteDance Limited. What this means for end users: If this bill is enacted, students, faculty, and staff at institutions of higher education that receive federal funds would be prohibited from using TikTok on electronic devices owned or issued by the institution, with some exceptions for research purposes. This could impact the use of TikTok as a tool for communication, entertainment, or education on college campuses. Given your emphasis on fairness, freedom, and privacy, you might want to consider the following aspects of the bill: Privacy concerns: TikTok has been criticized for its data collection practices, and this bill could be seen as a measure to protect the privacy of students, faculty, and staff at higher education institutions. Freedom of expression: On the other hand, the bill could be viewed as a limitation on the freedom of expression for members of higher education communities, who would be restricted from using a popular social media platform on institution-owned or issued devices. Equity and access: The prohibition could disproportionately affect students who rely on institution-provided devices for their personal use, as they would be unable to access TikTok, whereas students with personal devices could continue using the app. Before taking a stance on the bill, you may want to weigh these factors and consider the potential benefits and drawbacks of such a prohibition for students, faculty, and staff at institutions of higher education.

912 points by hitpointdrew 4y ago

Thankfully all of this bad press is starting to turn law makers minds. How it's turning out right now there is no shot TikTok will be banned. What we really need is privacy laws like almost every European country. But will currently lobbying laws I don't see that happening.

abeyer 4y ago
> What we really need is privacy laws like almost every European country Not gonna say we _don't_ need that... but it's not clear that there's any relevance to tiktok. Given the track record of Chinese companies and IP law they don't agree with, do you really expect them to honor privacy laws?
- erklik 4y ago
  > Given the track record of Chinese companies and IP law they don't agree with, do you really expect them to honor privacy laws? Since TikTok is storing the data on US soil (I believe that's something they've started), or if not, make them. Presumably they have or will have US presence in terms of personnel, money and so on. If that is all true, which it should be, then it doesn't matter if you expect them to honor privacy laws. That's why laws have punishments. Apply fines, go arrest the people at their offices, confiscate their servers and so on. It's so weird to me, that the logic is : They might not follow the law, let's not make it.
  - brigandish 4y ago
    It's an example of the perfect solution fallacy[0], often heard when talking about laws or lifestyle changes (e.g. vegetarianism won't save all the animals, or going on a diet won't stop you dying et cetera). I'm sure we can all think of ones in tech too. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy#Perfect_solution_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy#Perfect_soluti...
- CuriousCosmic 4y ago
  That's not the point. The reason the US judicial system isn't cracking down on TikTok is because there's no law preventing what they are doing. If the US passed a comprehensive data privacy & anti-surveillance law, US courts could sue TikTok into oblivion and even potentially levy criminal charges if they continued to refuse to comply. But they aren't doing that. Instead they are trying to ban TikTok so that the other social media companies (which are all US companies) can continue doing largely the same shit without getting in trouble. This bill is US economic & political protectionism. It's about banning software, services, and products from other countries without holding domestic companies to the same standard.
  - bioemerl 4y ago
    There is no such thing as a bill comprehensive and deep enough to ensure that a tool like tiktok not be abused by the Chinese government. Imagine for a moment you went back into the 1950s and told everyone "hey, let's have all of our television run by the Soviet Union! It's okay though, it's not actually the Soviet Union, it's just a company in the Soviet Union. And we passed a regulation, the regulation says they aren't allowed to use the TV show to do anything bad" They would think you're out of your mind, and the situation is similar today with TikTok. It doesn't matter how many regulations you put on it. We should pass such laws regardless, but we also need these bans as well.
    - chimeracoder 4y ago
      > There is no such thing as a bill comprehensive and deep enough to ensure that a tool like tiktok not be abused by the Chinese government. Sure there is. An comprehensive data privacy bill would render it impossible to legally collect the data that is necessary for the abuse in the first place. But that won't happen, because that would kneecap the US companies that these senators have stock in.
      - bioemerl 4y ago
        No there isn't, unless you want to regulate down to the specific details of what it's promoted or suppressed in their algorithm, who gets banned, who gets compensated for their videos, and so on You'd have to regulate so harshly that you may as well just nationalize the company
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  I’ll be frank, Palantir and their customers and their suppliers scare the bejesus out of me. Chinese spy apps and balloons and what not, not so much. I can be convinced though. The trouble is I’ve not heard a coherent explanation what China is going to do with a bunch of videos of people doing stupid stuff that could remotely impact my life or national security. If I were China I’d just use my overwhelming dominance in all manufacturing to make Trojan horses in basically everything then back door the world. Seems like they would be capable and it would be a lot more effective than knowing what every tween in America is interested in. In my career I’ve seen what Palantir offers behind closed doors. I’ve seen what Google at least at one point was offering behind closed doors using their dominance in real time local data. Even if you trust Google, why on earth do you trust their data customers?
  - glass3 4y ago
    Have you seen bioemerl's comment about television? The one who controls the weights in TikTok's selection algorithm determines what people are going to believe.
    - epups 4y ago
      If this is true, are you also concerned about the algorithms controlled by American billionaires? I think that's a national security risk as well.
    - theaussiestew 4y ago
      Are you seriously suggesting that the Chinese government is actively adjusting the weighting of the TikTok algorithms to sway mass opinion on the TikTok app? It’s already a stretch saying that the Chinese government controls ByteDance because they clearly don’t.
    - fnordpiglet 4y ago
      I don’t believe that social media has nearly as much influence on most people as people seem to believe. I think it absolutely impacts some people, but most people have much stronger social influence from their local social sphere - family, friends, school. But still some people are strongly influenced and that’s not good. But to what end? I think if it started pumping out Chinese communist party propaganda folks would notice. So, what’s left? I’ve heard “dumbing people down” by pointing to the fact the Chinese version of TikTok shows more educational and improving content. This isn’t because TikTok thinks Chinese people prefer educational content or that they get more revenue, it’s because the Chinese government requires them to show educational content. They show everyone else whatever garbage addicts them because, just like every other social media company, showing addictive garbage creates addicted customers and therefore dollars. If our government, say, instead of banning tiktok, did whah the Chinese government is doing - required social media to present more wholesome content to its users, guess what - tiktok would show more wholesome content to its users. As would Facebook, instagram, YouTube, and hacker news.
- cowl 4y ago
  There is relevance. You see now in Europe State Institutions and Coorporates are banning use of Tiktok on Official phones precisly because they can not guarantee the Respect of the privacy laws. Offcourse they are not banning private use of it but it beeing a social network, The Network effects will soon become apararent and tiktok will be used only for leisure but people will soon not bother havong another Social network that they cant use for a great part of the day. (Note that this attitute is not particular to China). On Corporate world we could not use a majority of US tech provided services also because by Euopean law we could not give guarantees that the US government would not access those data)
bioemerl 4y ago
This better just result in a revision of the bill to remove some of the things people are complaining about and not shut the bill down entirely. TikTok very badly needs to be banned.
alphanullmeric 4y ago
Laws like cash transaction tracking and other egregious violations of financial privacy under the guise of transparency? No thanks, keep that in the EU. Just further proof that it really is the people that voted for the patriot act, because so many supposed privacy supporters are willing to defend state surveillance where it benefits them.

puppymaster 4y ago

Last thread we have folks asking for full spectrum bill to target social media just to make it fair. Nah. I just want pinpoint TikTok ban with no vague and broad language for others. This bill is anything but that.

bioemerl 4y ago
One of the reasons the bill is structured as it has been is that the court shut down the last ban and was rumored to be willing to shut down a future specific ban. Keeping it in general was actually a way to get it past the courts.

gorwell 4y ago

This is a bipartisan bill and supported by the White House. It's Patriot Act Version 2. Everything they wanted in version 1 and couldn't get, they are putting in here. It does not contain the word TikTok. It applies to "desktop applications", "mobile applications", "gaming applications", "payment applications", "web-based applications" and everything connected to the Internet that serves >1M users within a year time period. Fines up to $1M and 20 years in prison. It also uses civil forfeiture and makes it illegal to properly run a VPN. This has bipartisan support.

aaomidi 4y ago
I’ve said this before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35123415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35123415
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
est 4y ago
> Internet that serves >1M users Not only that, if you selling hardware to >1M customers, then you are subject to this ban. Hint: Your hardware might be manufactured in China, or a Chinese-affiliated company in your supply chain, then you are at risk.
- yed 4y ago
  No, it only applies to entities where China has a controlling interest. If you buy Chinese hardware that doesn’t make your company Chinese.
  - syntheticcdo 4y ago
    No, at 3:50 in TFA the bill defines holding as: i. an equity interest, ii. a stock, iii. a security, iv. a share, v. a partnership interest, vi. an interest in an LLC, vii. a membership interest, or vii. ANY participation, right, or other equivilent, however designated and of ANY character (emphasis mine). That's a lot more broad than "Chinese controlling interest". Edit: and "controlling interest" as defined in the bill means "a holding with the power, whether direct or indirect and whether exercised or not exercised, to determine, direct, or decide important matters affecting an entity." which is much more broad than the commonly understood 51% equity stake.

pelagicAustral 4y ago

At least the bill is not about saving Silicon Valley Bank.

hindsightbias 4y ago
Actually, it’s another bailout for uncompetitive SV social media platforms.

dang 4y ago

Related: Republican Rand Paul blocks the fast-tracking of TikTok ban - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35366209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35366209 - March 2023 (48 comments) Bill 686: Use TikTok over VPN and go to prison for 20 years and/or 1M fine [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35360033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35360033 - March 2023 (3 comments) TikTok bills could dangerously expand national security state - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35359577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35359577 - March 2023 (3 comments) Senate Bill to Ban TikTok - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35347925 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35347925 - March 2023 (613 comments) The TikTok ban is a betrayal of the open internet - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35336748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35336748 - March 2023 (415 comments) The next Patriot Act, but so much worse: Bill S686 the RESTRICT Act (TikTok ban) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35336366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35336366 - March 2023 (10 comments) Patriot Act on steroids: anti-TikTok Trojan horse for censorship, surveillance - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35334851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35334851 - March 2023 (164 comments)

eganist 4y ago

> (2) Inapplicability of FOIA.— > Any information submitted to the Federal Government by a party to a covered transaction in accordance with this Act, as well as any information the Federal Government may create relating to the review of the covered transaction, is exempt from disclosure under section 552 of title 5, United States Code (commonly referred to as the "Freedom of Information Act"). How is this even remotely acceptable? I'm generally in favor of a TikTok ban, but this bill is so ridiculously onerous that they handed the PR advantage to TikTok and made a necessary national security measure almost entirely unsalable.

kenjackson 4y ago
Why are you in favor of a TikTok ban?
- eganist 4y ago
  I go into more detail on my thoughts here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35363138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35363138 The context in the thread is modestly useful.
gruez 4y ago
>How is this even remotely acceptable? Why not? It's not reasonable to expect everything to be public. There are classified documents, for instance. I skimmed the bill and "covered transaction" refers to financial (?) transactions with banned entities. Is that being exempt from FOIA laws really surprising? I wouldn't CTRs[1] to be requestable under FOIA, for instance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_transaction_report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_transaction_report
- eganist 4y ago
  The language exempts everything pertaining to this act. If there's intel informing a ban, that's one thing. But everything, even unclassified information? That's too much.
  - 4y ago

worewood 4y ago

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slackfan 4y ago
No.

Bud 4y ago

[dead]

monksy 4y ago

From Mr Clinton (Sometimes featuring Louis Rossmann): Summarization of the bill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudlYSLFls8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudlYSLFls8 Full reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlQAxhM3vo8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlQAxhM3vo8

boomboomsubban 4y ago
Mr Clinton is apparently Rossmann's cat, for others that don't get the joke.
- monksy 4y ago
  Mr Clinton is the star of the show.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

enragedcacti 4y ago

Does anyone have a breakdown from a lawyer about the RESTRICT act? I have no doubt that the bill is awful but all of the interpretation I have seen has been from people without legal backgrounds and with (to me, also someone without a legal background) very shaky readings e.g. just using a VPN AT ALL will get you 20 years in prison.

wilsonnb3 4y ago
I recommend reading it yourself, it is not a very long bill. It is crystal clear about the penalties for bypassing any “mitigation measures” that the executive branch creates using the bill/law. So no, just using a VPN will not be illegal. Using a VPN (or anything else) to access software or services provided by a “foreign adversary” that are deemed illegal to use by the executive branch will be punishable criminally by a fine of up to $1,000,000 and 20 years in jail and civilly by a fine of not more than $250,000. VPN providers may also find themselves in hot water if an adventurous prosecutor wants to make a case that the VPN provider is “aiding and abetting” simply by providing a service that can be used to circumvent the law. I would also appreciate a lawyer weighing in on that particular part as I am sure there is a lot of legal precedent involved in determining what counts as “aiding and abetting” in this context.
- lazystar 4y ago
  > Using a VPN (or anything else) to access software or services provided by a “foreign adversary” maybe im missing something ...how is that not already illegal? as an example, if someone in ukraine used a vpn to access the kremlins internal networks, id assume they were a spy for russia. the terminology is vague, but at first glance stuff like the pirate bay doesnt appear to match.
  - vkou 4y ago
    > maybe im missing something ...how is that not already illegal? Why on Earth should visiting, say, a Russian news site, or logging into VKontakte from the United States, using a VPN be illegal?

duringmath 4y ago

That's what you get when keep asking for more laws and regulations, this country has too much government and too many bad laws on the books and chances are new legislation will only make things even worse. So stop voting in attorney generals and other prosecutor types to congress and calling for every transaction and activity to be regulated just because you dislike a certain company or the people running it, special interests will always hijack your cause and warp it into this kind of monstrosity.

orthecreedence 4y ago
And stop expecting government to fix problems that are inherently cultural. It cannot do so, and in the process only grows in aimless power.

fsociety999 4y ago

Of course this isn’t and wasn’t ever about TikTok. The same way the original Patriot Act was never really about catching terrorists. When a bill has broad bipartisan support you can usually be sure it is not in the interests of the people. I am honestly a little surprised they named it the RESTRICT Act as opposed to something like “The Internet Freedom Act” which is more in line with how they usually operate. The bill is overly broad to the point where they can basically ban any app or service for any reason, and they don’t have to tell anyone why they did it. It also includes a section I haven’t seen a lot of people talking about: > (K) e-commerce technology and services, including any electronic techniques for accomplishing business transactions, online retail, internet-enabled logistics, internet-enabled payment technology, and online marketplaces. “internet-enabled payment technology” to me sure sounds a lot like Bitcoin and/or other cryptocurrencies. So all they have to do is say that some Russian state actor used Bitcoin to transact and boom Bitcoin is illegal. You try to use it, 20 years in federal prison and/or up to $1M fine. This is perhaps the most tyrannical/orwellian bill I have ever read. If this passes, Americans need to take to the streets and burn it all to the ground.

brucethemoose2 4y ago

This bill went from being bipartisan to wildly radioactive overnight. I am seeing sites from the entire US political spectrum, from far right to far left and moderates in between, techy and non techy, writing the same negative things about it. Some senators (like Marco Rubio per his latest Tweets) are already distancing themselves from the bill. I am still worried about another attempt... but I am not losing any sleep over RESTRICT. It is dead as a doornail.

Dalewyn 4y ago
[flagged]
- losteric 4y ago
  What are your critiques of the OP article? This bill seems indisputably bad. One could just as easily say vague American "powers that be" were stopped rushing the law through congressional lobbying propaganda.
- warent 4y ago
  Just read the bill for yourself if you want to cut through the propaganda, that's what I did. The bill is awful. It gives the Secretary broad sweeping authority to access everything about everyone who they think is "suspicious", without any kind of safeguards or criteria for what makes someone suspicious. They then have the authority to prosecute that person if they determine them to be bringing harm to the US, without any clarification of what that even means. The law has specific language for defining what a social media company is (over 1,000,000 users), but the law still seems to apply beyond just companies, extending to everyone including individuals.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    Having read through the bill[1], yeah: I'm in support of the bill. The bill specifically covers companies and businesses ("entities") held by "foreign adversaries" with more than 1 million "active users" or "units sold" in a given 365 day period, so the scope is narrow; the bill doesn't permit wanton authority over businesses period. Neither is the "VPNs will be blocked!" narrative anything more than a narrative, propaganda. The cited passage, section 11 subsection 2 paragraph F is boilerplate legalese prohibiting violation ("evasion") of the bill and any subsequent actions that come from it. This together with the Chinese propaganda machine seemingly going full bore convinces me even harder in seeing this bill passed into law. [1]: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686...

deleted 4y ago

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di456 4y ago

So Facebook/meta gets a monopoly on manipulating public opinion and subversion? They need to be regulated and reigned in just as hard as TikTok.

orthecreedence 4y ago
But but communists...
jacquesm 4y ago
That I can get behind, but for now it looks like 'The West' doesn't mind sharing data with each other as long as it is the users doing it themselves. The only country that takes a more aggressive stance on this is Germany and even in Germany Facebook works just fine. But a German company that deals with sensitive data should not send that data overseas without ensuring that this does not get them in trouble with the German privacy authority.
pyinstallwoes 4y ago
And how would you do that?
- di456 4y ago
  The right solution becomes more clear when the right problem is understood. Banning TikTok just means the same problems continue to exist domestically. Meta, InQTel/CIA, et.al just consolidate their power and eliminate the competition. Pandora's box is open and social media, AI, adtech ain't going back into the box. Regulate it evenly across the board.

deleted 4y ago

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dymax78 4y ago

> Fines up to $1M and 20 years in prison. It also uses civil forfeiture and makes it illegal to properly run a VPN. I genuinely don't understand where this interpretation is coming from; I'm not challenging the interpretation, rather asking for an explanation. They intend on cratering SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS (+ insert any other solution where VPNs are ubiquitous with respect to access) for the purposes of prohibiting access to TikTok and ilk that belong to "foreign adversaries" (China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela)? - Will B2B VPNs be allowed, and B2C / commercial VPNs be prohibited? - How would they accomplish this? Ask ISPs to blacklist VPNs? - How would any of this be enforceable? (perhaps I answered my own question with the preceding question) edit: I replied to the general post rather than the individual whom I addressing my inquiry.

anonymouse008 4y ago

What is the US's prevailing philosophy for domestic protection? Is it absolutely 0 risk? Is it 0 risk for certain things and not others? My mind struggles to understand a cohesive leadership strategy for the next 100 to 500 years. The current state of affairs could easily devolve into anarchy within 100 years - I just don't understand what they are giving us to work towards together? Bills like these say very squarely, 'we don't trust you, the citizen, to be able to defend yourselves. Nor do we believe that your efforts at incorporating new products and cooperating together to defend yourselves will be sufficient.' So... you're saying we are absolutely hopeless in the next 100 years? I seriously don't get that as a leadership strategy. The American spirit is one that overcomes any adversity, not through avoidance, but through head-on action powered by an unshakable resolve. This bill, as well as the original Patriot Act and almost every one since, discards the everyday citizen as the first and primary hope for the future. It is an erosion of the 'American Spirit' from our direct keepers of the flame; it's unbelievably sad. I say all of this 'couched' knowing full well evil people exist and keep a whole community behind for almost 50 years through racism - so it's not a 'let everyone be mean to each other' == freedom either.

thebradbain 4y ago
If the United States lasts in its current form for another 100 years, I will be surprised. 100 years ago, you could argue this country was fundamentally different than it is now — aside from rights (pretty much all of civil rights) and liabilities we now take for granted (the concept of federal income tax was just 10 years old, and not even fully implemented for another couple of decades), we were still two states shy of the 50 we have now. The country will absolutely change in the next 100. No telling which way, though.
eldenwrong 4y ago
Anarchy would be great and the chances of that are extremely small. I think you mean a total surveillance fascist dictatorship
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  Anarchy would be great? Anarchy would be Somalia - warlords and armed gangs. I don't want to live there.

not-chatgpt 4y ago

In order to beat China, we need to become something worse than China?

jjcon 4y ago
Something worse? China and others bans almost every western social media company. Is the US not allowed to retaliate on those grounds alone? This bill only authorizes the banning of tech companies operated out of western enemy states: China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela (with a caveat). The international economy is already not free (never has been), so I fail to see how this changes much other than shifting and clarifying some governmental powers. The US has banned Huawei telecommunications equipment, is this all that different other than the fact that it is much more public facing? What makes the Chinese government problematic is not protectionism or even the great firewall, it is the genocide, the policing of criticism from all sources, the authoritarian single party rule.
- not-chatgpt 4y ago
  I don't know, but China is not posing fines up to $1M and threatening 20 years in prison + civil forfeiture to just run a VPN. Also, are you saying genocides is not one of US's main export?
  - jjcon 4y ago
    > I don't know, but China is not posing fines up to $1M and threatening 20 years in prison + civil forfeiture to just run a VPN. Good thing that isn't what is happening here
- FooBarWidget 4y ago
  You have the right to do all that, but you can't do all that and at the same time claim to be a morally superior, free and open society. Pick one: are your much-espoused values more important, or is revenge more important?
  - 4y ago

slackfan 4y ago

I don't understand why HN allows and abetts the spread of these ludicrous, and frankly dangerous, conspiracy theories.

Shaggy2000 4y ago
[dead]
dang 4y ago
It seems like a legit debate—no? If one side is right and the other is wrong, the best thing to do is to post clear information explaining how and why. Name-calling doesn't help—it just locks things in place without giving anyone a reason to shift. Also it's against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

DethNinja 4y ago

Isn’t this bill a bit too broad? They might as well just write “We are the executive branch, we can do anything we want, rule of law does not apply to us”. It is kinda sad to see such laws from western countries because it discards entire progress humanity have made during the past thousands of years in terms of law and justice. This is some type of regression to cave-men era, one can’t help but wonder how such fall from grace have happened.

Shaggy2000 4y ago
[dead]
Shank 4y ago
> They might as well just write “We are the executive branch, we can do anything we want, rule of law does not apply to us”. The best part is that it's the legislative branch handing over this much control to the executive branch. It cedes so much authority from the legislative branch that the executive branch can basically run the show without intervention. Anything that can be remotely construed as bypassing a mitigation measure (i.e., telling someone how to download TikTok, or, hypothetically, any future social network or platform or service) could be turned into a violation without any further oversight.
akomtu 4y ago
It's even more interesting that similar sudden aggression from the state entities can be seen in other nations. The entire elaborate system of american laws, the bill of rights, congress and so on exists for one purpose: to keep the state demon in its cage. For some reason it's gotten very aggressive recently.
- imrane 4y ago
  [flagged]

theGnuMe 4y ago

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deleted 4y ago
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NoZebra120vClip 4y ago

No problem, says China, if they can't get at us via software and the Internet, they'll just start installing Trojans and RATs on every electronic device they ever send us (source: my current laptop was custom manufactured and shipped direct from Shenzhen).

jacquesm 4y ago
I bought an inverter for a set of solar panels recently and the only way to read it out / configure it is to allow it bi-directional access to and from a bunch of servers in China. I declined, and stuck a bunch of current transforms on the output lines so that gives me proper logging but there is no way to reach the configuration and setup other than what the display and infuriatingly broken single button interface provides. This is one of the major manufacturers ("Growatt") and the market is such right now that you take what you can. There is absolutely no way I'm going to give unfettered access to a bunch of power infrastructure in my house to a Chinese server without even so much as a protocol description or a way to selectively disable certain functionality (such as all remote control and updates).
- whitehexagon 4y ago
  Just tripped over the same thing. Axpert MAX inverter requires .cn cloud connected App. Prev gen had BLE local control. I had a look at trying to reverse engineer the protocol, but not much progress since I refuse to run the App. I can send a UDP message to tell it use my TCP server, but then it seems to require a magic knock at the door.

good_accelerate 4y ago

[flagged]

guerrilla 4y ago
It's in everyone's interest for this bill to pass! There's no need for propaganda when we can just read it!

perihelions 4y ago

If this passes, I think USGov will take down SciHub right away, because their position is that it's affiliated with GRU. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-department-investigates-sci-hub-founder-on-suspicion-of-working-for-russian-intelligence/2019/12/19/9dbcb6e6-2277-11ea-a153-dce4b94e4249_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-dep... ("Justice Department investigates Sci-Hub founder on suspicion of working for Russian intelligence", 2019)

jacquesm 4y ago
That's complete nonsense though.
- sampa 4y ago
  who cares

jacquesm 4y ago

So, how would the HN crowd have addressed the perceived issue if they were in power? Assuming that: (1) there is some evidence that TikTok is used to gather information on individuals (2) that this information makes its way to the Chinese state operatives (3) that this is perceived to be a security risk I find it easy to criticize this bill but I also find it hard to come up with a practical improvement over what it does.

rvz 4y ago
> So, how would the HN crowd have addressed the perceived issue if they were in power? Here's an idea: For any large social network (at least 250M+ monthly active users) or big tech company to continue operations in the US and if found to have violated the privacy of its users: Fine them up to $50M to $500M. Repeated offences should rack up to a $1B fine and failing to comply or to continue such offences should have fines increased into the multi-billions of dollars. Much better than this bill and even better than an outright ban. Easy.

htrp 4y ago

The Government can arbitrarily ban any service because the law covers desktop apps, mobile apps, gaming apps, payment apps, and web apps. I'm not sure what apps are left outside of the scope of this. ------------------------------------------------------ From the bill(full context) 6) software designed or used primarily for connecting with and communicating via the internet that is in use by greater than 1,000,000 persons in the United States at any point during the year period preceding the date on which the covered transaction is referred to the Secretary for review or the Secretary initiates review of the covered transaction, including— (A) desktop applications; (B) mobile applications; (C) gaming applications; (D) payment applications; or (E) web-based applications; or (7) information and communications technology products and services integral to— (A) artificial intelligence and machine learning; (B) quantum key distribution; (C) quantum communications; (D) quantum computing; (E) post-quantum cryptography; (F) autonomous systems; (G) advanced robotics; (H) biotechnology; (I) synthetic biology; (J) computational biology; and (K) e-commerce technology and services, including any electronic techniques for accomplishing business transactions, online retail, internet-enabled logistics, internet-enabled payment technology, and online marketplaces.

onion2k 4y ago
I think this means command line interfaces are going to make a comeback.
- shbooms 4y ago
  I feel like even that would fall under the umbrella of a desktop app in the context of this asine bill. they didn't say desktop apps with a GUI, just any "app" running on a desktop which I'm sure they would argue includes bash or whatever else you're running as your CLI.
  - KevinGlass 4y ago
    Maybe a service that you interact with over HAM radio via NLP would fall outside of it.
  - 4y ago

lynx23 4y ago

That is true genious. "Lets build a social network which will eventually force our adversary to restrict freedoms of their citizens, eventually moving closer to us..." It is counterintuitive that the US government is introducing legislation that will seemingly appease the Chinese government, given that the US is a democratic society that values individual freedoms. This raises important questions about why the government is falling for China's manipulative tactics. By restricting freedom and ignoring democratic principles, it appears the US government is playing into China's hands, providing justification for their own repressive actions. The USA needs to be vigilant in guarding its democratic values and principles, and committed to promoting these ideals around the world, instead of compromising them.

pyinstallwoes 4y ago
Nailed it.
tremarley 4y ago
Well said.
hammersdoom 4y ago
[dead]
nathan_compton 4y ago
One might argue that international conflict has always served primarily as a pretext to impose domestic social controls, at least since the cold war started. What I'm saying is that the ruling classes in China and the US arguably have more in common with each other than they do with their common citizens and the appearance of conflict is useful for both sets of elites.

Dig1t 4y ago

Seems that western democracies have been trending towards authoritarianism more and more as technology has improved over the last few decades. This is getting really scary.

matheusmoreira 4y ago

Million dollar fines and 20 years of imprisonment for daring to access information the government does not want you to see. Amazing.

nurgasemetey 4y ago

So if I will create SSH tunnel using AWS EC2 to view tiktok, can AWS ban me?

elihu 4y ago

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is opposed to the TikTok ban. About 5 days ago, she posted a video on TikTok explaining her thinking here: https://www.tiktok.com/@aocinthehouse/video/7214318917135830318 https://www.tiktok.com/@aocinthehouse/video/7214318917135830... The summary is: this would be a pretty unprecedented move to effectively ban a social media company. In this case, TikTok isn't even doing anything illegal as far as we know, because the United States has basically no data privacy laws that would be relevant here in the first place. The solution to that problem isn't to ban TikTok, it's to create a regulatory framework where companies are obligated to follow certain rules. Also, with these sorts of issues Congress usually receives a classified briefing where they're told the nature of the allegations against a specific party. Congress, however, has not been briefed on what TikTok is doing, which is odd. And besides, those allegations should probably be shared publicly in this case because the effects of any potential legislation are so significant. As she says, "this doesn't feel right." It seems like Congress isn't following its normal procedures. She doesn't talk about the language of any particular bill or how it doesn't mention TikTok at all; I'm not sure if the version referred to by the original video was available to AOC when she made her video.

KennyBlanken 4y ago
> In this case, TikTok isn't even doing anything illegal as far as we know, because the United States has basically no data privacy laws that would be relevant here in the first place. The solution to that problem isn't to ban TikTok, it's to create a regulatory framework where companies are obligated to follow certain rules. That's the thing: TikTok is basically state-sponsored, Apple/Google approved spyware. I don't have a link handy, but I remember reading that security researchers found the tiktok android binary had the capability to receive code remotely and execute it, meaning that the CCP can make millions of Android phones do whatever they want, especially if the code uploaded includes exploits. But how do you legislate against that sort of thing? Especially when Congress demonstrates how tech illiterate it is? It's also clearly being used to attack our society and infrastructure via children with poor judgement and little to fear from our criminal justice system. The platform does not not moderate in the slightest any of the various "tiktok challenges", most of which are dangerous to both the participant and general public, as well as causing lots of expensive damage. They could block or de-emphasize any number of the tags used in these "challenges", but instead they seem to boost them. So we have kids sticking forks into electrical sockets in their classrooms and destroying the bathrooms, breaking into Kias and joyriding them at insanely dangerous speeds, purposefully causing people to fall in the most dangerous way possible (kicking their feet out from under them so the brain's natural protective instincts can't protect the head from trauma)...the list just goes on and on. Did anyone notice that damn near every single one of these tiktok challenges seems almost perfectly tailored to cause a lot of damage or injury, and utilizes a population which essentially has nothing to fear from criminal repercussions thanks to our criminal justice system sealing their records once they come of age?

anarchogeek 4y ago

This ban and the bills seem bad, but they're not as bad as these folks make out on the video: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/government-hasnt-justified-tiktok-ban https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/government-hasnt-justi...

neom 4y ago

I'd recommend reading this report by the Australian government, it's very interesting: https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=a7e2a076-1112-4414-ba0f-f129e0cd39fe&subId=735418 https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=a7e2a076-1112-4... "Our research confirms beyond any plausible doubt that TikTok is owned by ByteDance, ByteDance is a PRC company, and ByteDance is subject to all the influence, guidance and de facto control to which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP, the Party) now subjects all PRC technology companies. We show how the CCP and PRC state agencies (together, the Party-state) have extended their ties into ByteDance to the point that the company can no longer be accurately described as a private enterprise. These findings draw on previously unexamined sources and contradict many of TikTok’s public statements. The most significant findings, in our view, relate to how TikTok’s capabilities may be integrated with what China’s leader Xi Jinping describes as the Party’s “external discourse mechanisms”."

IAmGraydon 4y ago

Who, specifically, is involved in writing the language of this bill? Name them.

650REDHAIR 4y ago
Mr. Warner (for himself, Mr. Thune, Ms. Baldwin, Mrs. Fischer, Mr. Manchin, Mr. Moran, Mr. Bennet, Mr. Sullivan, Mrs. Gillibrand, Ms. Collins, Mr. Heinrich, Mr. Romney, and Mrs. Capito) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
- IAmGraydon 4y ago
  Yes, but who is actually creating the text? Who is sitting there and literally choosing the words in the bill? Mark Warner does not have the technical knowledge to write this, and I doubt he has the time either. I want to know who’s thoughts are becoming law in this country.
  - 650REDHAIR 4y ago
    I’ll dig into it when I get home this evening, but he’s acting as a corporate mouthpiece for sure.

classified 4y ago

It's no surprise the government wouldn't constrain wild-west capitalism but instead expand wild-west surveillance and totalitarianism. Secretly they admire the Chinese role model and want to emulate it. They just want to avoid too much backlash in public opinion. After all, the U.S. are still a democracy, on paper.

baq 4y ago

TikTok is why every free liberal democracy must have a Special Circumstances department which is low key allowed to break all the laws to protect it… Banks was absolutely right.

squarefoot 4y ago

I'm not a US citizen, but we have our share of crazy civil liberties restricting bills as well, and when they can't manage to pass them the 1st time, they will try and try again until they succeed. We need to win every time, they need to win only one time. Generally speaking, one should be extremely suspicious of any bill that is being introduced during a crisis period (war, economics, etc) if it's not related to the crisis and it's bipartisan. Especially if it's bipartisan.

dpe82 4y ago

If this is as bad as some say, why isn't the EFF making a huge deal of it so far?

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago

If all you have to solve problems is a hammer ("control population") instead of a toolbelt ("control or alter situations") this is all you will produce as a politician. The political duopoly market failure, which has prevented such "alternatives" from appearing has entered its final, terminal spiral, copying the external alternative that is chinas party, which seems to survives all kinds of turmoil.

nirui 4y ago

I'm never an user of ByteDance/TikTok, but somehow this makes me sad for TikTok. If you don't know, many Chinese companies sees the "overseas market" (mainly US and EU) as a backup plan. If something went wrong in China (say the Jack Ma situation during the past few years, and many other unsound ones), the leadership of those companies can just pop to another country and then party cannot reach for them, which is what ByteDance CEO did. Now, without this market option, these companies can only dig in in China now, probably their eventually their own graves too, but business is better than no business, and overall China treat them more fairly this time. Even Jack Ma has returned to China just few days ago, he probably smelled something. You might think, "wow, good plan, hurts China very well". Well... you hasn't seen what it would be like when a Chinese company gone full-loyal towards the party. The party is probably writing love letters to who proposed the act. A win-win for the party and the US, I'd totally say.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> The party is probably writing love letters to who proposed the act. This is what they dont understand, if you take the club to legitimate foreign competition, the only ones left standing will ne the ones willing to play dirty.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> The party is probably writing love letters to who proposed the act. This is what they dont understand, if you take the club to legitimate foreign competition, the only ones left standing will ne the ones willing to play dirty. And they will know they mist be loyal to their evil government, because you will have demonstrated that you will not treat them poorly

EchoReflection 4y ago

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/3/28/bid-to-ban-tiktok-raises-hypocrisy-charge-amid-global-spying https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/3/28/bid-to-ban-tikto... https://www.npr.org/2022/11/16/1137076864/fbi-says-china-could-use-tiktok-to-spy-on-americans-including-government-workers https://www.npr.org/2022/11/16/1137076864/fbi-says-china-cou... https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelposner/2023/03/27/tiktoks-links-to-china-demands-a-serious-us-response/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelposner/2023/03/27/tiktok... https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/politics/spy-balloon-technology/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/politics/spy-balloon-technolo... https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-spy-balloon-us-pentagon-why-would-china-send-one-2023-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-spy-balloon-us-penta... China is not an ally of the United States. The Chinese government wants what is good for China. Shouldn't be a contentious or confusing idea.

phendrenad2 4y ago

Who wrote this bill? We should applaud them for making it so ridiculous that it loses support immediately.

quitit 4y ago

While chilling that this is so broad and thus likely has many "unintended" loopholes that could be used inappropriately. The wording of the bill is limited to foreign adversaries (then lists them) - however the press I'm reading mentions talk about how this could be used to criminalise VPN and present other possible harms collectively being titled as "patriot 2.0". Can someone fill in the connection between how it goes from a bill that requires a foreign adversary to suddenly criminalising VPN for everybody? I'm not in favour of bills that include broad language, but I'm also cognisant that foreign adversaries would be extremely interested in spinning this bill to be worse than it is. (i.e. if you could kindly point me to the section/s that look concerning https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text?s=1&r=15 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686... so I can better educate myself)

Sakos 4y ago
I've been approaching this from the same perspective and I'm wondering the same thing. It feels like there's a lot of spinning going on and I'm not sure people are aware of it. This seems to be a common sticking point: > to address any risk arising from any covered transaction by any person where a covered transaction is > (A) IN GENERAL.—The term “covered transaction” means a transaction in which an entity described in subparagraph (B) has any interest (including through an interest in a contract for the provision of the technology or service), or any class of such transactions. > (B) COVERED ENTITIES.—The entities described in this subparagraph are: > (i) a foreign adversary; > (ii) an entity subject to the jurisdiction of, or organized under the laws of, a foreign adversary; and > (iii) an entity owned, directed, or controlled by a person described in subparagraph (A) or (B). I don't understand how you go from here to "banning VPNs for everybody". I've looked through the act and I don't see anything particularly egregious that supports the "THIS IS THE PATRIOT ACT 2.0!!!" take. I want to see an analysis by law experts, not some techbros on HN or some random channel on YT. If I look at that channel, the description is "Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar is a fearless anti-establishment Youtube show and podcast." Uh ... okay. And I look at the rest of the videos they've made and it's just, yeah, this is a propaganda channel. Why are people taking this channel and the title of their video at face value? It feels like people are being played hard and we all need to take a step back from the sensationalism.

ibic 4y ago

The TikTok Ban can be said to be controversal, but to me, it's definitely not to be compared to something akin to a trojan horse.

AlexandrB 4y ago

I don't get what people were expecting. It's fairly obvious that a "TikTok ban" is a restriction on your rights as citizens to run whatever software you god damn please. Why would the law look like anything other than this? The US government has no power to restrict China from doing anything. All they can do is stop US citizens from doing certain things - and preventing US citizens from using TikTok requires some pretty broad powers over your digital life.

deleted 4y ago

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reset-password 4y ago

To stop China we must become China

eimrine 4y ago

Could the United States to stop producing smartphones with spyware-as-OS? In the word where nobody can spy how is it possible for ByteDance to get their app banned?

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago

They could have used the opportunity to make all apps more privacy friendly. Like, make all social media apps function without access to geolocation, phone address book etc People having access to secrets should only use standard-issue devices on the premises anyway.

rqtwteye 4y ago

After doing some reading seems to me that this bill will cause a lot of selective enforcement. It’s very broad and if enforced strictly it would probably shut down a lot of the tech industry. So it will probably be used to shut down inconvenient people and organizations while others won’t get touched.

bithead 4y ago

This is the single worst way to address the problem. Just start a new US-based replacement for tiktok. Like tittok or something like that.

baby 4y ago

This is so dumb, and I see a lot of Americans actually repeating the propaganda and truly believing that TikTok is a national security threat (even here on HN). Propaganda is truly an effective weapon.

1970-01-01 4y ago
There is good evidence suggesting it causes mental health issues, especially in adolescents. Keeping it under close study is a good idea, however calling it 'a national threat' is just knee-jerk grunting from 'the man'.
- baby 4y ago
  Sure so does alcohol, cigarets, gambling, video games, sugar, etc.

huuhee3 4y ago

TikTok and most of other social media is cancer entirely comparable to the tobacco industry. I wouldn't miss any of it.

atlgator 4y ago

The foreign entities list has all the usual suspects in the current "axis of evil." However, the Act allows the list to change without further legislation at the discretion of the Secretary. This is authoritarianism under the guise of safety.

unethical_ban 4y ago

I know we've got this great discussion going, but does anyone actually watch these kinds of "news" sites? It looks like a TYT knockoff and some pretty poor presentation. Who is Breaking Point, and are they reputable? The use of some filler language and "corporate media corporate media" and adverbs used like sugar in McD's sweet tea is setting off my BS alarms.

ngcc_hk 4y ago

What one country stop the other can react. Would it be an option as WhatsApp and YouTube not in china, one can block …

AtNightWeCode 4y ago

People drive around in more or less Chinese built cars. Or cars using Chinese tech. A bigger threat perhaps. Apply the pressure on Google and Apple instead to provide a safe platform even if the apps are rouge.

theprospector 4y ago

The "Terminate TikTok on Campus Act of 2023" (H.R. 231) is a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. If enacted, it would prohibit federal funds from being provided to institutions of higher education unless they ban the use of TikTok on electronic devices owned or issued by the institution. Here's a summary of the main provisions of the bill: Short Title: The bill is referred to as the "Terminate TikTok on Campus Act of 2023." Prohibition on Federal Funds: The bill would prohibit federal funding for institutions of higher education that do not develop and implement standards and guidelines banning TikTok on their electronic devices and requiring the removal of TikTok from such devices. Research Exception: The bill provides an exception for research related to national security, law enforcement, telecommunications, or cybersecurity that is conducted by, supervised by, or authorized by faculty of an institution of higher education. Definitions: The bill defines "institution of higher education" according to the Higher Education Act of 1965, "electronic device" as a device capable of accessing the internet, and "TikTok" as the social networking service TikTok or any successor application or service developed or provided by ByteDance Limited or an entity owned by ByteDance Limited. What this means for end users: If this bill is enacted, students, faculty, and staff at institutions of higher education that receive federal funds would be prohibited from using TikTok on electronic devices owned or issued by the institution, with some exceptions for research purposes. This could impact the use of TikTok as a tool for communication, entertainment, or education on college campuses. Given your emphasis on fairness, freedom, and privacy, you might want to consider the following aspects of the bill: Privacy concerns: TikTok has been criticized for its data collection practices, and this bill could be seen as a measure to protect the privacy of students, faculty, and staff at higher education institutions. Freedom of expression: On the other hand, the bill could be viewed as a limitation on the freedom of expression for members of higher education communities, who would be restricted from using a popular social media platform on institution-owned or issued devices. Equity and access: The prohibition could disproportionately affect students who rely on institution-provided devices for their personal use, as they would be unable to access TikTok, whereas students with personal devices could continue using the app. Before taking a stance on the bill, you may want to weigh these factors and consider the potential benefits and drawbacks of such a prohibition for students, faculty, and staff at institutions of higher education.